Varsity Baseball Team Tops B.U. In Contest Played at Braves Field

A trip back to what used to be Braves Field is a rather sad experience for anyone with a baseball memory of more than five years. The stands are now green and bare, there is a rusty wire fence where the left-field wall once stood, and the grass grows fitfully around the outfield.

The only denizens of the old park are the pigeons that flit among the rafters and, for the very observant, the ghosts of Billy Southworth, Tommy Holmes, and company--which still haunt the dugout behind first base.

A group of athletes from Harvard and Boston University played a game in this setting yesterday. It was supposed to be baseball, but the shades weren't convinced. The Crimson won the contest, 6 to 2, thanks to an assortment of nine walks, five wild pitches, and six errors by the B.U. team. The winners made only five hits (mostly of the scratch variety) and not one of their runs was earned.

The top half of the first inning established a pattern for the afternoon. The Crimson's Tom Bergantino led off by drawing a walk, and advanced to second and third on successive wild pitches. He scored a minute later, when the B.U. catcher dropped a third strike on Frank Saia and then threw wildly into right field in an attempt to make the put-out at first base.

The varsity scored again in the second on an infield hit by John Davis, an error, a wild pitch, and a sacrifice fly.

B.U. Home Run

In the last of the fifth, B.U. pitcher Bill McCormick got his team's first run by belting a 375-foot homer onto the railroad tracks beyond the left field fence. This, it was recalled, is where Bob Elliott used to hit them.

The Terriers tied the score in the sixth; but two innings later the Crimson bunched a couple of singles with a B.U. error and a wild pitch, to retake the lead, 4 to 2. The varsity's last two runs came in the ninth without benefit of a hit. This final B.U. gift was compounded of three walks, another wild pitch, and another error by the catcher.

Crimson pitcher Byron Johnson retired the Terriers without difficulty in their half of the ninth. A small claque of drunken Harvard rooters, almost lost in the huge expanse of the first base grandstand, cheered lustily. But over in the dugout Billy Southworth's ghost shook its head sadly, walked through the wall, and was lost from sight.